Leveling Up by Seducing Milfs-Chapter 265. Not Through the Bond

The room got quiet. Everyone looked at Rick and then at each other.

Rick could see on everyone’s face that they were rethinking every conversation that had just taken place in this building. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Zara turned her head away from Rick and looked in the general direction of his eye socket, which wasn’t really looking at anything.

She spoke to it in the same tone she used when she was giving an order she expected him to follow. "Then listen here, you fucking intruder..."

"We’ve killed things that are more ancient than you! And in fact, we’ll fucking figure this out, and when we do, you won’t FUCKING like what happens next."

From Rick, a sound emerged that was half his laugh and half something that wasn’t, and he said, "She means every word of that."

"Of course I do," Zara said. "That wasn’t for your own good."

...

The shape had finished mapping after twenty minutes.

It pushed.

Rick’s body got up.

The difference was evident and instantaneous, a sensation Rick could sense from his core, surpassing even the intensity of pain. His body used its strength, muscle memory, and abilities to move, but he didn’t make the decision.

He could feel the gap between the decision and the body carrying it out, like a missing step in a staircase.

"What the fuck is wrong with me...!?" Rick looked frustrated.

The bond network grew quickly. All six connections sent resistance through the channels at the same time, with each partner pushing back through their bond in a way that was possible for their specific power.

The shape pushed harder, and Rick’s body moved three steps toward the door.

Carmilla walked into the doorway. She put all her weight there, and Guardian’s Resolve was active.

The body that was Rick’s moved on because its muscle memory recognized Carmilla as someone it had walked through. The conditioning was stronger than whatever was making the movement happen.

"Rick, please!" She said, "Listen to my voice... I’m here, dear."

He could hear her from the inside. "Carmilla, I can feel where you are, but I can’t—"

He heard his own voice coming from his own throat, but it was hard to say the words. "I can’t... urgh... hold the whole body at once! It’s trying to find a way around."

"Then hold on to what you can," she said. "We’ll handle the rest from here."

His hand went up. The shape had tapped into Rick’s physical strength, but he didn’t know how to use it in a battle; he only knew how to use force to overcome obstacles.

Rick’s hand was on Carmilla’s Resonant Shield.

She stayed still. The barrier held, and so did she, with her shoulders back and her feet planted.

"I’ve held worse," she said, and her voice was steady. "You know that."

"I know," he said, his voice strained and his own. "I know."

The body turned back toward the window. The shape was methodical, going through all the possible exits one at a time, just like it had done with the bond network.

Natasha walked into the window’s path. She didn’t build a whole Glacial Fortress; she just brought the ice up around the window frame with the kind of accuracy that comes from knowing that being off would hurt Rick.

"I want to make a note for the record," she said, as ice formed in careful layers. "Your success rate against barriers I build is zero."

"This is not a boast; it’s a statistical observation that I thought you should have access to."

Rick sent the bond from inside. "She’s right, I’ve never been able to get past one of her barriers when trying to sneak into her shower, and I’ve tried."

Zara said, "That’s not comforting."

Natasha said, "It was meant to be."

The shape stopped. The body came to a stop.

Rick could sense that it was present with him, processing the logic of what it had observed, remaining calm while adhering to a strategy, absorbing new information, and adjusting its approach.

Sylvia said something. She didn’t talk to the room.

She spoke directly to the socket, and her voice sounded like it did when she stopped using the person-shaped parts of herself that she kept for convenience and let the thousand-year weight behind her speak instead.

"You are using my Consort’s body without his permission," she said. "I want to be clear about what I’m saying... so don’t take this as if I’m threatening you."

"I’m just telling you what will happen next if you keep going, because I think you should know the facts before you make your next choice... especially if it’s a fucking reckless choice."

Dragon’s Presence filled the room right away after that word.

This was not the controlled version that Rick had seen her use in battle, which was designed for tactical effect.

This was the genuine Dragon’s Presence, the profound biological imprint that existed prior to any training or enhancements, and the force that had repelled smaller creatures from her for millennia. It settled over the room like the weather.

The shape stopped.

Rick could feel it from the inside. This was a genuine pause, not a recalculation; it represented the quality of something that had encountered a variable it had not fully considered.

He pushed back with all his strength during the break.

He was able to control some of it. It was insufficient for his purposes, but sufficient to impede the body’s natural functions.

A standstill, dangerous, and burning through resources he didn’t have.

He said, "I have a few seconds," and for the first time in twenty minutes, his voice was completely his own.

"Someone hold me down fast...! I need something real, something outside the network, so that I can feel what it’s doing, and I need—"

Liora reached for her divine channel, but nothing came back. She had set it on fire in the ward chamber.

Carmilla’s grip got tighter through the Unbreakable Bond. Rick was losing control, and the shape was interfering with the signal quality.

Natasha ran the numbers and got a result that she didn’t say out loud, but the way she held her analysis crystal afterward made it clear how excellent the number was.

Sylvia’s Dragon’s Presence was preventing the shape from moving forward, but it still couldn’t keep Rick in place.

Zara was giving the Demon Queen’s Authority power through the bond from where she was standing. The socket was inside the network perimeter, and the authority couldn’t get past the boundary it was protecting.

Zara said with a sweat. "I had no idea my husband’s eye could still withstand such a fierce battle."

And then... Zephyra got up.

She had been sitting on the floor for twenty-four minutes without saying anything, reaching for her folio, reading aloud, or feeding anything through a bond she didn’t have. She had been there, and that was all.

She stood up and walked calmly to Rick’s body, as if she had made a decision and was just following through.

She reached out and grabbed his hand.

It wasn’t the sword-wielding hand, but the other one—the writing hand—that hadn’t produced any useful results in the past twenty minutes due to its inability to comprehend the function of writing hands.

She held it with a flat, precise grip, her fingers closed over his knuckles. This was the same way she held everything.

"Rick," she said.

One word.

His name.

The perfect tone of voice came from her when she told Heinz which way to go, corrected the water temperature, and said thank you because she meant it without reservation.

He heard his name through everything: the interference that made the shape scream through the socket, the bond channels firing resistance in every direction, the purple-edged layer of Valdris pressing in at the edges of his internal sight, and all of it.

Not through the bond. Not through the static of corruption, but just a sound and voice.

The voice is real, flat, and human.

He pulled because he could tell the difference between his hands and the hands; the shape was used in that sound. He could also tell the exact line between decision and movement.

The shape didn’t back down gracefully. It was pulled faster than it had meant to let go, yanked back from a grip it had been seconds away from closing, and the sound it made through the socket wasn’t a sound at all.

It was an impression—a feeling of something huge that Rick hadn’t felt in a long time.

His eye’s purple edge blinked out.

And finally, Rick’s body was his again, completely and without negotiation. His legs didn’t want to keep up the act of being able, so he went to his knees on the floor.

He didn’t fall, but he chose to stop pretending to be standing, which felt like an important difference.

He still had Zephyra’s hand in his.

She hadn’t let go.

The room stayed still for a few seconds, like when something loud stops and everyone is trying to figure out what to do.

Sebastian said, in a voice that was quiet enough for the room, "The shape retreated...!"

"The socket is dormant, but fuck! The corruption is still there, but it’s not pushing or anchoring." He moved his monocle around carefully, as if he were organizing his thoughts. "Something just happened that broke the connection."

"Yeah," Rick said. "It sure did, huh...?"